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Seminary Books of the Semester

By bringing students, faculty, staff, and the wider community together around excellent books by thoughtful authors, the Calvin Seminary book of the semester program promotes conversation, community, and learning centered on key issues facing the church today.

These are the books we have read as a seminary community since 2001:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Purple Hibiscus

M. Craig Barnes Searching for Home: Spirituality for Restless Souls

Dorothy C. Bass Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time

Jimmy Breslin The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez

Geraldine Brooks March: A Novel

Frederick Buechner Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who

Frederick Buechner Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale

Elias Chacour Blood Brothers

Tanner Colby Some of My Best Friends Are Black

Kathleen J. DeBoer Gender and Competition: How Men and Women Approach Work and Play Differently

Shusako Endo Silence

Ron Hansen Mariette in Ecstasy

Kent Haruf Plainsong

Chip and Dan Heath Made to Stick

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Infidel

Levitt & S.Dubner Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Hall, D. Moore, L. Vincent Same Kind of Different As Me

Lois Lowry The Giver

Richard Lischer Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery

Thomas Long & Thomas Lynch The Good Funeral

Thomas Lynch The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

Karin Maag Does the Reformation Still Matter?

Sonia Nazario Enrique’s Journey

Katherine Paterson Bridge to Terabithia & Jacob Have I Loved

Alan Paton Cry, The Beloved Country

Marilynne Robinson Gilead: A Novel

Richard Rodriguez Hunger of Memory

Gary Schmidt Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2007)

Gary Schmidt Okay for Now (2013)

Sarah Shin Beyond Colorblind: Redeeming Our Ethnic Journey

James K.A. Smith Letters To A Young Calvinist

Elizabeth Strout Abide With Me (2008) & Olive Kitteridge (2011)

Barbara Brown Taylor Speaking of Sin

John Timmer God of Weakness: How God Works Through the Weak Things of the World